Haunting
by Perrette13
Summary: The wicked rain whispered to her of her insanity. It whispered of love and her inability to capture its essence within her wounded hands. The rain haunted her just as he did.
1. Chapter 1

The clouds were a weeping thicket of gray flowers, tears softly crawling down the sky's face like a mournful tune. Each and every ugly little drop of water mocked her, scorned her, and wrenched the ground from beneath her feet, cackling at every failed attempt she made at standing up.  
At least, that's what it seemed like to Cuddy. The wicked rain whispered to her of her insanity. It whispered of love and her inability to capture its essence within her wounded hands. The rain haunted her just as he did. The drops muttered in low voices of her deterioration, sparking the painful memories of her grim hallucinations.

_Drop._

Without her permission, he pressed his lips to hers with an urgency she didn't know he possessed. Her lips were closed at first, unbelieving of his actions. She didn't deserve this. She was hallucinating, she was sure, but the softness of his love-laced lips kidnapped her reason and within moments she found herself giving in to the very thing she knew would end badly. The kiss she had chased after for so long was finally hers. And his. It was theirs and she found herself smiling as she came into the revelation. They parted reluctantly, their need for oxygen evident with their labored breaths.  
"I…I love you, House." She whispered.  
But he had already twisted into nothing, like she knew he would. She knew he would, yet the tears still slithered down her cheeks. One by one.

_Drop._

House was there again. She braced herself. What phantom had her mind conjured up for her this time? She hoped it was the one that loved her.  
Or at least pretended to.  
She studied the icy drops that were his eyes, hoping to discover the truth behind her inquiries, but found nothing. Nothing but a cold and calculating stare that gripped her attention a little too tightly.  
He limped slowly to her, the dull thud of cane to floor resonating uncommonly loud in her office's interior. His rigid fingers caressed her cheek with tenderness and intimacy of a true lover.  
Cuddy fought back wistful tears. She'd had this hallucination before and she knew exactly what would happen, but the only way to make him curl into smoke and float away was to give in and go through with it anyway. She blinked and lifted a quivering hand to cover his own.  
"I love you." She managed to murmur.  
The caressing fingers dug into her skin with a sudden anger, the hand whipping back and striking her with such a force it sent her diving into the ground. Trembling, she moved to wipe the small trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth.  
It burned.  
"You're pathetic!" He spat with malice.  
She didn't cry, though. Crying was even more pathetic. He would strike her again.  
Twice as hard.  
So she cried on the inside, her dry eyes finding his. The drops of ice that were his eyes melted into silver wisps.

_Drop._

House's lips had found another's once more- Stacy's- Not hers.  
They were right in front of her making out like a couple of horny teenagers, moans and whimpers escaping their throats as the ante was upped little by little. And Cuddy had to stand there and take it, unable to runaway to some corner of the room and sob about her inability to love. Their images wouldn't fade until one of them had an orgasm and both of them could go on for a while.  
The clothes were starting to shed.  
Cuddy watched with tear-threaded eyes as her love made love to another.

_Drop._

_The kiss._

_Drop._

_The slap._

_Drop._

_The affair._

_Drop. Drop. The kiss, the slap. Drop. The affair._

The rain chanted the words like a damned tribal dance complete with the thunder as the tribal drums.

_Drop. Drop. Drop. The kiss, the slap, the affair. Drop. The kiss. Drop. Drop. The slap, the affair. Drop. The kiss. Drop. The slap. Drop. The-_

"Stop!" She shrieked.

_Drop. The kiss. Drop. The slap. Drop. The affair._

"Please!" She begged, desperate tears streaking her face in black rivers. The rain answered with an explosion of thunder that seemed to shake the hospital.

_Drop. Drop. Drop. The kiss, the slap, the affair. Drop. Slap. Drop. Kiss. Drop. Affair._

Her voice was drowned in tears, choking in dying gasps.

_Drop. Kiss, slap, affair. Drop. Drop._

"Why…" She whispered.

_The kiss, the slap, the affair. Drop. Drop. Drop._

With violent urgency, she searched her desk drawer for the only thing she knew would smother the rain's painful accusations.  
The blade.  
She speared her ribs in vengeance, crying out in pain as crimson gushed from the fresh wound.

_Drop. The kiss. Drop. The slap…._

She drove the steel in further, savoring the refuge the pain provided from the merciless rain. She ripped the knife out and started a new wound, a new shield.

_Drop. The affair…_

The taunting seemed heavy as though the whispers came from underwater. In her bloody haze, she conjured up House's image.  
"Don't…" She choked.

_Don't abandon me._

_Don't hurt me._

_Don't leave me for her._

_I love you._

The words never sifted through her lips nor reached his imagined ears. He dissolved into the carpet while she collapsed to the floor, blood pooling quickly from her accumulating gashes. The rain surged and pulsed with a rhythm alike to her slowing heartbeat.

_Drop. The kiss. Drop. The-_

KNOCK KNOCK!

An unhallucinated House limped in without waiting for an answer.  
"Hey Cuddles I- CUDDY!" He burst, rushing over half-limp, half-sprint to her blood-splashed form.  
She averted her silver blue eyes, refusing to meet the gaze that had spurned her one time too many.

_Drop. The slap. Drop. The affair. Drop. Drop. Drop._

His icy gaze went from the knife in her grip to the free-flowing gashes that blazed across her skin.  
"I need a nurse in here!" House shouted, holding her wrist to check her pulse. The blood was spurting faster than the rain was whispering.  
She was lost in the sea of blood and the mockery of the rain when she began to loosen her grasp on reality. She was slipping.  
"I love…" She struggled to form the words that had been locked in her heart, locked in her mind for so long, but House wasn't listening anyway. She completely missed the slam of her door colliding with the wall as it was torn open to make room for a gurney. The only feeling, the only sense that seemed to register was his hand leaving hers.  
The drops of ice that were his eyes pierced her skin as she was loaded onto the gurney.  
_You're pathetic_, They seemed to whisper.  
And that hurt more than any wound she could inflict upon herself.

* * *

Hmm....I might add chapters to this....Well, review,please- I live on reviews! Don't let met starve!!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: It's been awhile, but this story has been bugging me (haunting me, could you say?) so I decided to give it a proper burial. I digress.

The rain fell like needles, striking the glass window of his office. _Grey_, House thought faintly, feet propped on the desk, eyes on the storm rather than the patient file at hand, _like flowers_. He should write that down. He palmed an overly generous dose of Vicodin into his mouth, swallowing dryly.

_Cuddy's going grey_. He counted a few strands the other day when she was denying his request for exploratory surgery for the terminal Patient X. They were likely his fault anyhow. His mouth set in the grimace of a smile and he took another pill.

_Cuddy, Cuddy, Cuddy,_

_ What I do to you._

_ What you do to me._

He imagined for a brief moment, holding her, kissing her. _I love you_, she'd say.

But he couldn't. The thought dissipated like smoke in hot wind. And that intrusion, that crack in the walls he'd built up around his heart, had guarded by trained sentinels, that fault so clearly caused by her and her attraction, made him briefly hate her.

_ What you do to me. _

He thought of hurting her, of drawing blood, of watching the inklings of pain, understanding, and apology twist in her eyes.

But he couldn't do that either and such thoughts melted seamlessly into another palm of Vicodin. This wasn't the first time, he knew, that such cracks in the wall were made. It was only the most recent.

He thought of Stacy and the smoky nights of passion he shared with her, of stroking her skin, smelling her ashy hair, her body wracked with pleasure, eyes bright with the throes of rapture. How idyllic it had all seemed at the time, that she had built him up only to break him down. But those notions were too flimsy, distant, and long-numbed away, so he pushed it away with another pill.

_Don't_. He could hear Cuddy whisper as he swallowed the narcotic. _Don't._

_God, Cuddy, what you do to me. _

He looked to the rain, again, felt it stabbing him

Lacerating him.

Eating him.

Killing him.

He rose then, unsteady and unwilling. He needed to see Cuddy. He didn't want to talk, or banter, or argue; he just wanted to see her, to stifle this odd cloud hanging over him like a crude harbinger. He hobbled down the hall, down the stairwell—the elevator would be too easy—pausing at her outer office.

The blinds were drawn and he could feel his wall emanating, solidifying, imprisoning. It smelled like rust and ash. Fearful, but resilient, he donned his ironic iron façade and pushed through the barrier.

"Hey Cuddles, I—"

Cuddy was a vision in red, crumpled on the floor, skin pale, crescent nail marks buried in her palms, a razor lying adjacent to her collapsed form.

Time moved slowly then, like a Salvador Dali original. He remembered rushing to her, checking her pulse, calling for a nurse, but not much beyond immediate, instinctive physical action.

He conjured her silvery eyes fluttering open then closed, a brief candle extinguished by rain. Out, Out.

_Jesus, Cuddy, you're worse than me. _

The pain struck him then as though his and hers were linked by some uncommon thread. He took a pill to numb it, retreating back up into his office, into himself.

She'd done it herself. That much was evident. But why?

Why would she do that?

Why on earth would she do that?

_For the same reason you do_, she whispered in the stillness.

No. She didn't do it to herself, he decided, someone did it to her. Someone hurt her. Someone broke in.

_You did, _He heard her again, _You broke in, you broke me._

He looked down at his hands, felt her blood coat them like rubicund gloves. They dripped onto the desk and stained his papers.

Wilson entered then, wilted and weary.

"The cuts aren't deep," he said. The blood was gone. "She inflicted one or two before collapsing due to what appears to be extremely high levels of stress and fatigue. The woman hasn't slept in days."

House said nothing and for a moment neither did Wilson. The silence hung heavy between them, unfamiliar in depth and texture.

"Something's eating her." House said finally, voice gruff with misuse.

"Something's killing her," Wilson corrected, "talk to her, House."

"She doesn't listen to me."

"She only listens to you."

_Cuddy, Cuddy, Cuddy,_

_ What I do to you._

_ What you do to me._

House nodded, popped a pill, and rose with some newfound narcotic resolve. Against his better judgment, he insulted and interrogated a young orderly to get Cuddy's room number and was soon stricken with sight of Cuddy, resigned to a hospital bed, now a vision in white.

They both did pain so well.

An IV coiled her arm; her eyes were closed, but wounded, her strife written in the stress lines creasing her forehead. The blip of the heart monitor was slightly out of tune. He should have left then and were he sober it would have been his first instinct, but Vicodin burned his blood and he staggered to the side of her bed. Her hand was bandaged, wrapped in meaningless cotton, but he willed himself to hold it.

_Does it hurt? _

_Yes._ Her lips never moved, her eyes never opened, but he heard it. He felt it.

_Why'd you do it? _

_ I'm not the Ice Queen. I'm not as confident and as iron-willed as I set out to be. _

_ I'm not what I used to be._

_ I'm not strong. I'm not strong like you. _

_You're right_, he thought carefully, releasing her hand. He felt her shiver.

_You're stronger than I'll ever be._

The Vicodin bit at him then, numbing the part of him that wanted to part her hair and kiss her forehead. He found his footing and turned to leave. He swallowed at the threshold, pained, numbed, and toiled.

_Cuddy, Cuddy, Cuddy. _

_ You haunt me, too. _


End file.
